Akaroa

Akaroa is a harbour town lying on the opposite side of the Banks peninsula to the Port of Lyttleton which is adjacent to Sumner. It was actually colonised by a shipload of French immigrants in about 1840 who were blissfully unaware that only days earlier the Treaty of Waitangi had been signed and New Zealand was a British Colony. Conflict was avoided by "the diplomacy of the officials" (Van Rumpy Pumpy perhaps?)and Akaroa developed and maintained a unique French flavour to this day.

Many of the street names are French and in amusing reminder of its "frenchness", when we were in a shop to buy the girls a little polished bloodstone ($2.30 each)the customer before us must have mentioned "the French connection" and the lady said "Do yo speek Freench?" , "A little" the man (who I soon found out was a kiwi from Nottingham) said sheepishly, "Parlez-vous Frincais" she replied in a totally Kiwi accent, "Oui" he said hesitatingly at which she asked him in English if he was from Australia, you know the rest......

Akaroa has a population of about 600 but that day it seemed more like 6000 as a Cruise Ship was in the Port. I have never seen so many old people with cameras in all my life - and that was just the American contingent. The next dominant ethnic group appeared to be the Chinesey types mostly with cameras but either younger or ageing better. The cruisers were walking around in groups of 4/6 and thus crowding out most of the shops and restaurants - Paul did well in getting us a table at L'Hotel de something and we had a great meal.

As many of my friends know, to avoid flying I foolishly thought a cruise to NZ would be affordable....well I don't think we could survive a journey with all the other passengers looking and sounding like Jack Benny or one of the Golden Girls. Note this does not include Kevin & Sheila nor my cousins Colin & Bernadette who are experienced though not ancient mariners.

We left for Sumner about 2.30pm with Paul electing to go the "mountain route" which in this case meant the outside lane of a twisting and tortuous series of hairpin bends with mountain on one side and generally a 1000' drop on the other. Needless to say I was quiet until we reached our ice-cream stop on the flat - The Blue Duck Cafe.